A collection of observations, news and resources on the changing nature of innovation, technology, leadership, and other subjects.

June 06, 2005

The Internet and Films

I often think -- even after working in the area for more than ten years -- that there is something almost magical about the wonders of the Internet and World Wide Web. I can rhapsodize about how the Internet has transformed business, society and our personal lives, and often do in formal talks and any other opportunity I have. But we all know that real "magic" isn't theoretical but personal. Take the impact that the Internet has had on my pleasure in watching films.

I have enjoyed movies as far back as I can remember. Going to movie theaters has been one of the main sources of entertainment in my life. And, more and more, I also found that I enjoyed reading what critics said about the movie I had just seen -- if I had bothered to save the newspaper or magazine with that particular review. Once the Web came on the scene in the late '90s, I no longer had to hunt for those magazines or newspapers, and could simply go to web sites like imdb.com . . . . and there they were, not just the few reviews I was able to previously get my hands on, but a whole slew of them from all over the country and sometimes beyond, usually led by my favorite and most trusted reviewer, Roger Ebert.

So far, so good, but I was still primarily watching newly released movies in movie theaters. But then, around this same timeframe of the late '90s, I happened to wander into the video room of my local library in Westport, CT, and came face to face with this incredible collection of films on VHS (they have since added DVDs to the collection), from just about every possible genre, that you can check out and take home. I browsed the collection, saw an older, classic movie that caught my eye (I don't remember what film it was), took it home and watched it. Afterwards, I went to imdb.com and other sites, and found lots of information about the movie I had just watched, including the collection of reviews that expressed lots of different points of view on the movie. A number of the critics, along with opinions on the particular movie being reviewed, also had opinions on what other works by the same director, actors or actresses you should watch. I then went back to the library (or in reality, searched its online catalogue, took out whatever recommended movies I found, and before I knew it, I was not just watching individual movies, but essentially taking the equivalent of a self-taught, informal film course over the Internet.

For example: I had honestly never paid attention to Westerns since watching Hopalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger -- speaking Spanish -- when I was a kid in Havana. I knew who John Wayne was, but the general impression I had was of someone who strongly supported the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, and later had an airport named after him in Orange County, CA. One day, browsing the Western video section in the library, I saw a tape of Stagecoach, took it home and watched it. I absolutely loved it!!! I then went on imdb.com and learned all I could about it. Stagecoach was directed by the great John Ford, was viewed by critics as one of the first "serious" Westerns, and propelled John Wayne to stardom. The reviews also recommended what to watch next, and I proceeded to watch and learn about just about every Western directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne. There was the so called "Cavalry Trilogy": Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and Rio Grande, in all of which John Wayne plays a cavalry officer. There was the much darker The Searchers, in which Ford and Wayne deal with racial prejudice against native Americans in a more complex way than had been done before. And then there was the magnificent The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, in which they deal with the demise of the Old West as civilization arrives at the frontier, and which ends with one of the most famous lines in movies: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

It is very interesting, and frankly quite a pleasant surprise, that I had to wait until my 50s, and the advent of the Internet, to enjoy and appreciate these wonderful films.

Comments

Another really valuable source of information I've found on movies (and books for that matter) is Amazon.com. Their personalization engine is really top-notch and often recommends books and movies to me that I've never heard of. These recommendations are created by analyzing previous purchases, rankings I've given, and complex algorithms correlating my preferencs to the preferences of millions of other customers. These days I go to the Amazon home page just to see what new recommendations (contrast this with the typical reaction to a television commercial - i.e. change the channel).

(BTW, I work for IBM, not Amazon, so don't think I'm hijacking your blog to do a surreptitious advertisement for Amazon!)

You mentioned some really good John Wayne movies. All of the John Ford ones were really good, and you can really see how Ford and Wayne matured together as actor and director as they went on. Though not a Ford movie, did you ever see "The Shootist"? It was Wayne's last movie and is really interesting in a postmodern sorta way since it's about a dying man (Wayne's character has cancer) but also a dying breed of man (he was an ex-gunslinger - an 1890's type of man living in a modernizing, more civilized world). This was interesting because at the time Wayne was in real-life dying of cancer and also the western was dying as a popular film genre. This resulted in a Wayne character with a much deeper humanity than in his earlier uber-macho years.

The Ford movies are really amazing for their visuals - especially the landscape shots at sunset. I think I read somewhere that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg really look to Ford's movies for inspirations on these type of establishing shots like they look to Kurosawa for dynamic shots.

Bill, I did indeed see The Shootist (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075213/) and loved it for all the reasons you mentioned. In addition to John Wayne's wonderfully dignified performance, The Shootist had quite a cast, including Lauren Bacall, Jimmy Steward, Ron Howard and a number of others.

I have to own up, I am an IBMer as well, but irrespective of our shared employer I do feel compelled to agree that it's the ease of access coupled with the interconnectedness of information delivery that's really exciting. It can also be a major distraction, and that's an issue that needs to be addressed. Having studied film history to a small extent about 20 or more years ago, I recall the difficulties faced then in getting a discussion group together, finding a projector, the 16mm film itself, a guest speaker and so on, let alone the time spent physically in libraries researching the topic (using the Dewey decimal system of course). What a difference in today's interconnected and truly globally internetworked world. Whilst I have wonderful memories of actally meeting (face to face) local producers and directors (in Australia), we now act out our interests, hobbies and learning experiences in an almost frictionless manner, on a global stage. Computing has always had that 'magical' quality about it, no more so than right now. But no matter how good it may seem today, tomorrow's vision promises greater integration and convergence of delivery forms and content. With that will come challenges (such as reworking copyright laws to avoid information roadblocks, or working around the major distraction of so many hyperlinks that tempt us from our intended path), but the benefits are clear.

Hola, Irving. Nice to hear some IBM fellows share the passion for John Ford movies. John Ford was a great American patriot and at the same time very critical to not only the corruption in the establishment but also the missing of some foundational values of the American spirit. I think his movies must be revisited, as well as the vast majority of classic films, but not in the candid and decoratively nostalgic manner some critics and public do. If seriously taken as they deserved those movies will shed some light over our current world problems, since their rich metaphors are as universal as Shakespeare's plays or Greek myths. I'm sure you got the chance to read Guillermo Cabrera Infante's book "Arcadia Todas las Noches" (not sure if there's an English translation). Though I personally don't like his latest works, I think this book compiling five lectures given in Havana in the fifties on five Hollywood directors is very good. I read that book in my early youth and really opened my mind to a different, deeper view, of the movie classics. Saludos.